About Nora Galland
Artist's Statement
Nature fascinates, delights, and inspires me. For many years, I gardened, creating “landscape paintings”. When I retired from a career in IT, I enrolled in the New York Botanical Garden’s School of Botanical Illustration to develop the skills needed to capture the beauty of nature in paintings.
Artist's Biography
Nora Galland was born in Brooklyn, New York and now resides and gardens in Westchester County, New York and spends summers in the Adirondacks.
After a successful career as an IT Professional, she enrolled in the Botanical Illustration program at the New York Botanical Garden. She has been privileged to study drawing and painting with many important botanical artists, including Mindy Lighthipe, Laura Vogel, Louisa Rawle Tine, Eleanor Wunderlich, Anne-Marie Evans, and Lauretta Jones and to study Plant Morphology with Dick Rauh.
She is a member of the Garden Club of Irvington-on-Hudson, a member club of the Garden Club of America (GCA). After her work was shown in a juried show at the headquarters of the GCA it was selected for inclusion in their permanent collection, where it is now on display. Her paintings have been included in several issues of GCA's major national publication "The Garden Club Of America's Bulletin": the Spring 2018, the Spring 2019, the Winter 2021, and the Winter 2023 editions.
I draw and paint what I love in nature. It need not be a red rose or a blue chrysanthemum that captures my attention, although they do. It could be a weed or a leaf or a sunset. Botanical Illustration demands accuracy. It compels me to study my subject closely, often with a magnifying glass or under a microscope. I aspire first to portray a plant accurately and then to capture its beauty and grace. I love the process of observation, absorption, and quiet intimacy. Graphite allows me to capture detail and is the starting point for all my paintings. I paint with watercolors as they can appear as translucent as a flower’s petals. Multiple layers of diluted watercolors build up the depth and intensity of the colors while still retaining the magic of light on the plant. Colored pencil and wax pastels provide brilliant colors, No matter the medium, I paint to portray the variety and visual glory of nature.